Dr. Sharmarke Mohamed to Lead Two International Crystal Engineering Conferences in 2026 and 2028
Khalifa University’s Dr. Sharmarke Mohamed, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Head of the Chemical Crystallography Laboratory (CCL) and Theme Leader in the Center for Catalysis and Separations (CeCaS), has been elected by the solid-state chemistry community to co-chair the 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Crystal Engineering.
The election of Dr. Mohamed took place during the business meeting of the 2024 GRC in Crystal Engineering, held from 23-28 June 2024 in Newry Maine, US. It marks a four-year commitment for Dr. Mohamed to help organize the upcoming two GRCs in Crystal Engineering (as vice-chair in 2026 and co-chair in 2028). It also marks the first time a researcher from the Middle East has been elected to lead this globally recognized conference series in the sciences.
The Gordon Research Conferences provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, physical and engineering sciences. The first GRC in crystal engineering took place in 2010.
Dr. Mohamed said: “The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) is an international premier scientific conference for researchers in the natural sciences and I am honored to represent Khalifa University and the Middle East as vice-chair of the 2026 conference and co-chair of the 2028 conference in Crystal Engineering. This recognition from my peers is a testament of the global research impact of Khalifa University in the sciences and the recent advancements made in science and technology in the Middle East. My election campaign was based on a platform of increasing diversity and inclusion and I plan on using this opportunity to bring better visibility to crystal engineering research from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”
Earlier, Dr. Mohamed was elected as Chair of the ACS International Chemical Sciences Chapter in the UAE and has served as the Secretary & Treasurer of the Chapter. He is also the co-founder of the Emirates Crystallographic Society (ECS) and has served as its founding Vice-President and the UAE representative to both the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) and the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). With an interdisciplinary research program spanning mechanochemistry, chemical crystallography, computational chemistry and crystal engineering, Dr. Mohamed also serves on the advisory board of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s CrystEngComm journal.
Alisha Roy
Science Writer
18 July 2024
